Seedling - October 2005

The latest issue of Seedling further explores what we have come to call 'convergence': the ways in which people are resisting the push for monopoly rights over information in different sectors. The main feature is a panel interview from people working in different sectors in the fields of free and open software (FOSS), access to medicines, seeds, communications and the media. There is also an article about the synergies between the movements fighting for free seeds and free software, and some other convergence-related and -unrelated pieces.

Where is intellectual property policy made? Governments make intellectual property law, but where does the policy thinking that lies behind the law come from? More than a decade ago I, along with my colleague John Braithwaite, set out to answer this question.

Seedling approached a number of people working in different sectors and from different perspectives and get their views on the possibilities for convergence. Our ten-person panel includes people working in the fields of free and open software (FOSS), access to medicines, seeds, communications and the media. (large page - on slow connections, may take a while to download)

In many countries, control over information has become a big issue. An underlying aspect of this control has been the use – or threat of use – of force to establish control. The aim is often to prevent information from being freely exchanged, creating an artificial scarcity that keeps information prices high. The fight to protect such freedoms is being fought out in many different arenas. Roberto Verzola explores the synergies, similarities and differences between those trying to protect the freedom of innovators in the worlds of software and seeds.

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture – sometimes called the ‘seed treaty’ – was adopted by UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) member states in 2001 and came into force in 2004. Governments that signed on are now working out implementation details. Far from its roots in the struggle to assert farmers’ rights as a counterforce to breeders’ rights, the Treaty has ended up being mainly about granting new privileges to industry. It will give seed companies free access to most of the world’s public genebanks without any obligation to share their own materials in return.

At the same time as Asia’s fisherfolk are urging their governments to help re-establish artisanal fisheries after last year’s tsunami, an international ‘tsunami-recovery’ consortium is suggesting that they should abandon their livelihoods and find employment elsewhere. The fisherfolk also face other challenges – from growing pressures to switch over to industrial aquaculture and fishering, and the introduction of genetically modified fish.